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'International law' is no longer a sufficient rubric to describe the complexities of law in an era of globalization. Accordingly, this collection situates cross-border norm development at the intersection of interdisciplinary scholarship on comparative law, conflict of laws, civil procedure, cyberlaw, legal pluralism and the cultural analysis of law, as well as traditional international law.

During the past decade, the rise of online communication has proven to be particularly fertile ground for academic exploration at the intersection of law and society. Scholars have considered how best to apply existing law to new technological problems but they also have returned to first principles, considering fundamental questions about what law is, how it is formed and its relation to cultural and technological change.

Religion has become a charged token in a politics of division. In disputes about faith-based social services, public money for religious schools, the Pledge of Allegiance, Ten Commandments monuments, the theory of evolution, and many other topics, angry contestation threatens to displace America's historic commitment to religious freedom. Part of the problem, the authors argue, is that constitutional analysis of religious freedom has been hobbled by the idea of "a wall of separation" between church and state.

Modern America owes the Roman Empire for more than gladiator movies and the architecture of the nation's Capitol. It can also thank the ancient republic for some helpful lessons in globalization. So argues economic historian Harold James in this masterful work of intellectual history. The book addresses what James terms "the Roman dilemma"--the paradoxical notion that while global society depends on a system of rules for building peace and prosperity, this system inevitably leads to domestic clashes, international rivalry, and even wars.

Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually part of a culture's way of expressing its sense of the order of things.

When Army Captain Ian Fishback decided to blow the whistle on prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan, he posed the central question facing America in the new century: “Will we confront danger in order to preserve our ideals, or will courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice?... I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is 'America.'” But what is this idea? George W. Bush waged war in Iraq in the name of American values--liberty and democracy.

Liberalism in America is in greater peril than at any other time in recent history. Conservatives treat it as an epithet, and even some liberals have confused it with sentimentality and socialism. But Paul Starr, one of America's leading intellectuals, claims that, properly understood, liberalism is a sturdy public philosophy, deeply rooted in our traditions, capable of making America a freer and more secure country.

Should the Supreme Court have the last word when it comes to interpreting the Constitution? The justices on the Supreme Court certainly seem to think so — and their critics say that this position threatens democracy. But Keith Whittington argues that the Court's justices have not simply seized power and circumvented politics. The justices have had power thrust upon them—by politicians, for the benefit of politicians.

In their personal lives, people consider it essential to separate economics and intimacy. We have, for example, a long-standing taboo against workplace romance, while we see marital love as different from prostitution because it is not a fundamentally financial exchange. In The Purchase of Intimacy, Viviana Zelizer mounts a provocative challenge to this view. Getting to the heart of one of life's greatest taboos, she shows how we all use economic activity to create, maintain, and renegotiate important ties—especially intimate ties—to other people.

Scholars of international human rights law are largely unfamiliar with law and society scholarship, while the study of international human rights has remained at the margins of the law and society movement. International Human Rights: Empirical Approaches to Human Rights seeks to bridge this gap by presenting the work of a growing number of academics who are adopting a range of empirical approaches to international human rights.